Handyman in Midtown, Memphis
Midtown is the older heart of residential Memphis, sitting between I-240 on the west and East Parkway on the east, with Vollintine-Evergreen to the north and Cooper-Young and Rozelle to the south. Most of the neighborhoods here — Central Gardens, Evergreen, Annesdale Park, Hein Park, Speedway Terrace, Idlewild and Lenox among them — filled in during the first decades of the 1900s, and a good share are historic districts. That means Craftsman bungalows, American foursquares, Tudor and Colonial Revival houses, and plenty of 1920s duplexes and small apartment buildings. Nearly all of it was built with plaster on wood lath, solid-wood doors, original double-hung windows and raised floors over a crawlspace, and almost every house has been rewired, re-plumbed or remodeled at least once in its life, not always well. For repairs, that means patience: matching old trim profiles, fixing plaster instead of tearing it out, easing doors that have settled with the house, and working carefully around old wiring when a fixture or fan comes down.
Daily life in Midtown is shaped by its parks and its corridors. Overton Park, with the Old Forest, the Memphis Zoo, the Brooks Museum and the Levitt Shell, sits in the middle of it all. Overton Square and the Cooper-Young district give the area its restaurants and music, Broad Avenue has its own arts scene, and Crosstown Concourse turned the old Sears building into a hub for shops, offices and apartments. The streets are lined with big willow oaks and old pin oaks, sidewalks are buckled by roots, and most houses sit close to the street on narrow lots with a detached garage or carport out back off an alley or side drive. Parking is usually on the street or a shared driveway, which we're used to working around. The tree canopy is a big part of why people love living here, and it's also why gutters, roofs and fences in Midtown take a beating every fall and every storm season.
ZIP codes we cover in Midtown: 38104, 38112
What Midtown neighbors book most
- Drywall Repair
- Door Repair & Adjustment
- Ceiling Fan Installation
- Light Fixture Installation
- Interior Painting & Touch-Ups
- Gutter Cleaning & Repair
Jobs we handle a lot around Midtown
A typical Midtown visit is a mix of old-house work: plaster cracks along ceilings and over doorways, a pocket door that slipped off its track, a 1920s light fixture swapped for something newer, or a ceiling fan installed where an old fixture box needs to be checked and braced first. We rehang and plane doors, replace worn mortise-lock hardware where possible, re-glaze and free stuck wood windows, caulk and paint exterior trim that the humidity has opened up, and clean gutters packed with willow oak leaves. Duplex and fourplex owners call us for make-ready lists between tenants — patching walls, fixing faucets and running toilets, replacing smoke detectors and blinds. And because many Midtown basements are really crawlspaces, we often add a quick check underneath when a floor feels soft or a bathroom has a slow leak.
Questions we hear in Midtown
Can you repair plaster walls, or do you replace them with drywall?
We repair plaster whenever the wall is still sound, because a good plaster patch keeps the look and feel of a Midtown house. Loose plaster gets reattached to the lath with plaster washers, cracks get taped and filled, and only the truly failed sections get cut out and filled with board brought up to the same plane. Then we skim and blend so the wall reads as one surface instead of a patchwork. If a whole ceiling is sagging away from the lath, we'll show you and talk through the honest options.
My old wood doors stick every summer — can they be fixed for good?
Mostly, yes. Midtown's houses have settled for a hundred years and the humidity here swells wood doors every summer, so a door that closed fine in February rubs by July. We tighten and shim hinges, plane only where the door actually binds, and then seal the raw edges top and bottom so the wood doesn't keep drinking moisture. That combination usually ends the seasonal fight instead of just getting you through one more year.
Is it safe to put a ceiling fan where my old light fixture is?
Often it is, but in a Midtown house we always check first. Many older ceiling boxes are shallow, or only rated for a light fixture, and some still hang from old wiring that needs attention. We open it up, replace the box with a fan-rated brace box where needed, and if the old cloth-covered wiring isn't fit to carry a fan and light kit, our licensed electricians replace that run before we hang and balance the fan. You end up with a quiet fan on a solid mount and sound wiring, all in one job.
Do you work in the Midtown historic districts?
Yes. Ordinary repairs inside your home don't usually need special approval, but exterior changes in some Midtown historic districts can need review by the city's Landmarks Commission. For the work we do, like repairing trim, replacing a broken gate latch or touching up paint in the same color, that's rarely an issue, but if you're changing what the street sees we'll suggest you check with the commission first.
Everything we offer in Midtown
Nearby areas we also cover
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